


Time Will Come

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Blood and Water [20]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-06
Updated: 2017-07-06
Packaged: 2018-11-28 10:25:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11415963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: Written for the comment_fic prompt: "Stargate Atlantis, Evan Lorne's mother,Mothers pride / Baby boy / His father's eyes / He's a soldier waiting for war / Time will come / He'll hold a gun / His father's son- (George Michael)"Evan's story begins with his mother and father.





	Time Will Come

When Sionainn O’Hara first met Samvel Davytyan, she hated him, because he was part of the machine that was going to enslave her forever. She wasn’t a person, she was a pawn on the grand chessboard that was South Boston, where the squares were blood and bone instead of white and black. It was so antiquated, only meeting the boy on her wedding day, but she showed up at the church, dressed in despised white, and her father towed her along, down the aisle, and literally gave her away to -

A boy with dimples and high cheekbones and a sweet, nervous smile.

Sionainn wanted to claw his face off.

Instead she recited her vows in Irish, just to spite him (of course, she also spoke Armenian, because the Davytyans were a force to be reckoned with, even with the Sheppards on the prowl, cousins and enemies though they were). He recited his vows in Armenian, and when he leaned in to kiss her, she was going to bite his tongue off.

But he didn’t put his hands on her, and the kiss was brief, chaste, just a fleeting press of lips before he offered her his arm and they exited the church in a shower of rice and breadcrumbs and flowers.

The party was magnificent. It wasn’t a celebration of their marriage. No, it was a celebration of the alliance between their two families. Together, they could chip away at the Sheppard empire, take back what was rightfully theirs.

That night, Sionainn hid in the bathroom - she’d refused to wear the slinky lace thing her elder sister had pressed upon her - and thought about using a nail file to sharpen a toothbrush into a shank. They did that in prisons, didn’t they?

But Samvel didn’t come for her. When she finally dared to peek out of the bathroom, he was asleep on the floor, with a single blanket and pillow his only comforts. So she tiptoed across the room, climbed into the bed, and slept.

And that was her marriage. Samvel was no more husband than any of Sionainn’s other roommates had been over the years, cousins and uncles and other distant male relations all relegated to either Cousin or Uncle, depending on their ages. Actually, Samvel was perhaps more family than any of them, because he was - considerate. He never left a mess, always cleaned up after himself, did his own laundry and cleaning. And when he cooked, he always made enough to share with her, if she so chose.

At first she was genuinely convinced he was poisoning her share. It was the smart move. Marry her. Do his duty to his family. Be rid of her before there were complications, like children.

But then one day she happened to be home while he was cooking - the kitchen smelled amazing - and he smiled at her tentatively, encouraged her to sit at the table and eat her share while it was fresh.

It was amazing. She’d known he was a good cook, but she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had anything so good. He sat down with her, and together they ate, and they talked. Actually conversed, for the first time. He was working in one of his father’s garages. He’d take it over once he was older. He was the youngest boy, after all.

Sionainn was the youngest girl. She was working in one of the family law offices, learning the ropes. Her parents had thought about sending her to get her court reporting certification, or maybe become a paralegal, so she knew a few extra tricks. It would pay to have a lawyer in the family - cheaper than buying one off. Blood bought loyalty in a way money never could and all. Blood and water and all that.

“People get that wrong,” Samvel said.

Sionainn blinked. “What?”

“Blood is thicker than water. People think blood refers to blood relations and water refers to...well, what does it refer to?” He gazed at her earnestly.

“I don’t know,” Sionainn admitted.

“It’s a shortened version of an old saying,” Samvel said. “ _The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb._ It’s not about family willing out. It’s about people willing out - the people who act like your family, not just the ones who call themselves family, are born your family. But we cut it short and got it backwards. Two birds, one stone.”

Sionainn eyed him. “Do you agree, then? That people who - who _covenant_ to be family are more important than the people who are born your family?”

“After a while, I suppose they all get mixed up.” Samvel gazed at her. “I covenanted to be your family, didn’t I?”

He had, but he hadn’t acted like family. Hadn’t even tried to consummate the marriage - for which Sionainn was grateful.

Except - except Samvel _was_ more like family than even Sionainn’s own, wasn’t he? With his kindness and gentleness. He was one of the first people who’d ever cared what Sionainn wanted. She’d made it abundantly clear that she didn’t want to be tumbled by him, and he still slept on the floor, even now, six months into their marriage.

“Yes,” Sionainn said. “You did.”

She still waited a week before she dared to kiss him. And then things proceeded, well, like middle school. Holding hands. Daring to sit next to each other on the couch while they watched television at the end of the day. Occasionally necking and petting.

And finally - finally, consummation.

Sam was just was gentle and sweet in the bedroom as he was in the rest of their life, and Sionainn - she loved him.

When she discovered she was pregnant, Sam was overjoyed, and so was she, but she saw the fear in Sam’s eyes, the worry. If their child was a boy, it would upset everything. A child who was both O’Hara and Davytyan would have claim to both thrones, would usurp Sionainn’s oldest brother’s child and Sam’s oldest brother’s child. Sionainn was a woman of reason, not superstition, but she went to the wise women in her family and his, the women who still left cream out for the Fair Folk, the women who could thread a needle through an egg and know from the way the yolk broke whether her child would be a boy or a girl.

None of them had answers, so Sionainn started buying baby things in pink. All pink. Everything pink. Booties and blankets, bonnets and socks and dresses.

Blessedly, their first child was a girl. They named her Sofia, Armenian for her father, beginning with an S for her mother. There was another celebration. Sofia, when she grew, would be valuable, connected to two prominent families, to be given in marriage to a third. Sionainn didn’t care. She loved her daughter, sang to her and played with her, taught her to roll over and crawl and stand and walk and then sing and dance.

Sam was adorable with her. He loved her in a way Sionainn had never believed a Family man could. He was awed by every smile and laugh, every babble and word, every dance and jump and catch.

Sam worked at the garage, Sionainn stayed home with her daughter, and life was perfect. Life was _normal_. Sionainn learned to cook from Sam, and she was always glad to have dinner waiting for him when he got home.

And then she learned she was pregnant again. She started telling Sofia all about her new little sister who was on the way. Sionainn unboxed all of Sofia’s pink baby things, and Sam helped her build another nursery in what had been Sionainn’s sewing room. Sofia followed along behind them, trying to help and talking about all the things she planned on teaching her little sister.

But all the wise women were saying the same thing. The next child would be a boy.

Sionainn was a rational woman. There was no way they could know. But again she saw that look descend in Sam’s eyes, the worry and the strain. He started going to work earlier and staying out later. Sionainn didn’t ask what he was doing, because she was afraid Sam was doing the things he was never supposed to have to do.

When the baby came, they barely had time to give him a name before Sam hurried Sionainn out of the hospital. One of the boys from the garage was waiting beside an unfamiliar car on the street below. Sofia was asleep in the back seat, her little face streaked with tears, a suitcase at her feet and her favorite stuffed animal tucked under her arm.

For the next week, Sionainn and Sofia slept in a different home every night. Sam was gone at all hours, would leave with a gang of boys from the garage and return, pale-faced and shadow-eyed, his hands bloodstained instead of grease-stained. Sionainn kept her little Hovhannes close and pretended not to see.

After a week, Sam didn’t come back from one of his late-night outings. Instead one of his boys - a different one from the one who’d met them at the hospital - roused Sionainn and Sofia, bundled them and the baby and what few possessions they had into yet another strange car, and away they drove. Far, far away. To California.

A woman named Amelia Flanigan took them in, and Sionainn was wary of her Irish name, but she was kind and didn’t ask questions, simply carried Sofia to her new bed and settled Hovhannes into a bassinet. Sionainn lingered at the door, spoke to the boy.

He told her Samvel was safe, and that the Families would never find her.

That was a lie. But Sionainn and her children had six months before Tigran Davytyan sent a couple of his enforcers to demand Hovhannes from her.

It was Amelia who rustled up protection, in the way of Henry Flanigan.

Yet another family.

But this family wouldn’t demand from Hovhannes - and Sionainn and Sofia - what the O’Haras and Davytyans would. They pretended a truce - the Flanigans were now cousins to the O’Haras and Davytyans. And they would stay out of each other’s way. Sionainn’s oldest brother had children. Sam’s oldest brother had children. Hovhannes belonged to no one but his mother.

And the Flanigans.

Sionainn watched her little Evan grow up, watched him working on cars with Uncle Henry and the rest. When he came home, grease-stained and pleased with himself for some new trick he’d learned to make a seemingly dead engine rise again, he looked so like his father, for all that he’d inherited his blue eyes from his mother. That spark, that joy, that knowledge - that was all Sam.

Henry Flanigan kept his promise - none of Sionainn’s children would grow up to be anything that Sionainn hadn’t wanted them to be. Sofia decided she wanted to be a tattoo artist, and Henry found her an apprenticeship with one of the men in the Family who did all the ink for the boys. Training and a steady stream of customers. Sofia had inherited her mother’s hand for art.

As had Evan, but Evan was destined for greater things. His skill with cars and art turned into stealing and forgery. Sam’s care and attention to detail, like when he’d cooked Sionainn’s favorite meals or used a sprig of lavender in the laundry, were twisted and amplified in Evan, and by the time he was sixteen, he was running his own car crew.

Then it all went wrong, and Henry took Evan back to Boston, and when Evan returned, Sionainn saw more of his father in his eyes. That dangerous blankness, which was a veneer of grim determination. Evan wanted out.

Sionainn didn’t know just what Sam had done, to get her and the children out of Boston, but she could guess, given how the Flanigan men treated Evan, talked about him when they thought neither he nor Sionainn could hear. They thought Evan had inherited his ruthlessness, his coldness from his father. No. What he’d inherited from his father was the willingness to do anything - _anything_ \- to protect who and what he loved.

That killing glint in his eyes, that punctilious organizational skill, the ability to charm and ease and manipulate - he’d learned all that from his mother. Sam alone hadn’t been able to get them out of Boston. Sionainn had made sure that Evan returned safely from his trip to Boston - as safely as he could be, in Henry Flanigan’s company, doing Henry Flanigan’s dirty work.

But if Evan wanted out, Sionainn would help him get out. And help his cousin Nancy, too.

“Come with me, Mama,” Evan begged. He was at the door with a bag packed and enough money and smarts to get wherever he wanted to go. Judging by his haircut, Sionainn knew where he was going to go, and it was anywhere in the world Uncle Sam told him to go so he could be all he could be. Still fighting in other men’s wars, then.

“No,” she said. “I have to stay. For now.”

Evan studied her for a long time, and she saw Sam in his gaze, and she wanted to weep.

“For now,” he said. He kissed her on the cheek, and then he vanished into the night.

When Flanigan’s men came calling, Sionainn could honestly say she didn’t know where he was. Apparently he’d made off with the nest egg from the car operation and worse -  though they didn’t want anyone to know - the ledger from every single piece of false paper he’d drawn up over the years, from fake IDs for booze to fake passports for members of the Glorious Cause to come over from Ireland.

Years later, when Sionainn received an invitation to the promotion ceremony for Evan Lorne (First Lieutenant to Captain), she knew her boy was all right, and she was proud of him.

She knew he’d be back for her.

And then she heard the whispers. He was back. Bluebell. Hovhannes Davytyan. He and Baby John Sheppard had teamed up - after they’d hooked up, all those years ago - and Hell on Earth was about to begin.

The time had come.

Sionainn was sitting with Sofia’s children, Connor and Kieran, when there was a knock at the door. Sofia, who was curled up on the couch with her sketchbook on her lap while she worked on a design for a custom tattoo, paused.

“Can you get that, Kieran?”

Kieran heaved himself up onto his feet with all the attitude that a ten-year-old could muster, and he padded over to the door, pulled it open.

“Who are you?” He spoke English, as he always did for visitors.

The man who answered spoke Armenian, and Sofia was on her feet in a flash, gun in hand.

“ _My name is Hovhannes Davytyan, and I’m here to see your grandmother_.”

Sofia lowered her gun, eyes wide. “Evan?”

Sionainn rose up, came around the sofa so she could see the man her son had become.

So handsome, just like his father.

Holding a gun, just like his mother, like the soldier he was.

Sionann crossed the room, came to stand before her son, framed his face with her hands, studied him. “My baby boy,” she whispered. “My pride and joy. Welcome home.” She pressed a kiss to his temple, murmured an Irish prayer.

“Mama,” Evan said, “it’s time.”

She nodded, went to step back, and then she noticed his companion. “Who is this?” But she suspected she knew who it was, recognized those ever-changing eyes.

“Mama, this is my commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard.”

Baby John Sheppard was no baby, not any longer. He was sharply handsome, and he wore a soldier’s weariness, one Sionainn had seen in her own father.

“Evan - Bluebell - I don’t understand,” he said.

Evan dropped to one knee, grasped Sionainn’s right hand, and pressed his forehead to the back of her hand. The old families had always liked the ritualism of medieval fealty. “I serve at your pleasure, my queen.”

Realization dawned in John Sheppard’s eyes.

“Rise, my son,” Sionainn said. Sofia came to stand beside her, head held high. Not even she had forgotten the rituals.

Evan stood before her. “Come with me, Mama. You don’t have to stay anymore.”

Kieran tugged on Sionainn’s arm. “ _Maimeó_ , who is this?”

“This is your Uncle Evan, and he’s here to take us away.”


End file.
